"Bandster Hell"

Not much is new. I'm retaining a bit of water, so I have a slight weight gain for now. I'm not terribly worried about it, and I'm not going to weigh daily anymore. The weight loss should slow down now anyway, since I'm going to increase my calories a bit. It's senseless to be under 700 cal a day. It certainly won't encourage my body to shed excess weight, so if I hope to continue losing before my first fill, it will need to be slow, and I'm not going to let myself get so hungry anymore. Strict liquids and purees now, though. I've been thinning out beans and potatoes and blending soups, and I still have at least 1 protein shake per day. I usually have met my minimum of 50gm protein before noon anyway.

What I hear in practice from fellow band folks and what I hear from the nutritionists at the O.I. are pretty different. The nutritionists painted a bleak picture of an extremely austere diet in this stage (and forever, actually). The truth seems to be that early on, people do what it takes to get through this "Bandster Hell" phase, whether that means sugars and starches or not, and even later in the more active weight-loss phase, focus on making good choices at least 80% of the time and have an occasional treat and still lose weight just fine. That seems smart. I do want to limit the refined sugars, but for now will just do that modestly. As long as everything is the right consistency to slip through the stomach and not make it churn, so the sutures heal well, I'm not going to sweat the rest of it too much, except getting protein and about 20% fat, as I was instructed by the nutritionist for post op. I still struggle with getting enough water.

I am reading a good book, "You: On A Diet". It's written in a kind of gimmicky, cutesy way, but has really good information and great cartoonish illustrations. It's pretty no-nonsense and sensible, and cites a lot of research, although it's hard to say if it's interpreted correctly without doing a lit review. So far it's been engaging and informative, especially the focus on obesity as an inflammatory process and the way our diets contribute to inflammation and cause other problems for us. Thumbs up.